In May, when dark clouds gathered and a thunderstorm began to break out in Laos, the team collecting the remains of fallen soldiers (Ha Tinh Province Military Command) prepared their luggage to return home. Just like previous years, each time they brought the soldiers back, the soldiers felt strangely excited. Perhaps, their most glorious task was to find and welcome the soldiers back to their homeland.
Recalling memories from his military trips through Laos, Lieutenant Colonel Pham Huu Tien, Political Commissar of the team collecting martyrs’ remains, said: “When the martyrs’ remains are found, the team will carry out the exhumation procedures according to Vietnamese customs. During this process, we take pictures of the martyrs’ bones attached to the relics. The team also marks the coordinates at the location where they were found to put them into the storage diagram to avoid the case of brothers searching again and again later.”
In the dry season of 2023-2024, the soldiers in the collection team worked hard and completed the assigned task. One by one, the remains of 11 martyrs found from the mountainous areas of Laos were moved to the Martyrs' Church of Vietnamese Volunteer Soldiers and Experts in PacSan town, Bolykhamxay province. This is a church invested by the People's Committee of Ha Tinh province, completed at the end of 2016, with a scale of 2 floors. Before the martyrs were brought back to the Motherland, many local people came to the church to burn incense and bid farewell to them.
Lieutenant Colonel Tien shared that the search for martyrs' remains has received great support and assistance from the Lao authorities. After each dry season, the leaders of Ha Tinh and Bolykhamxay provinces will hold a meeting to evaluate the results achieved. Along with that, the two sides will sign and agree on solutions for surveying, searching, and retrieving the remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and experts who died in Laos in the next dry season.
Mid-May was a very special day for Lieutenant Colonel Pham Huu Tien after his and his teammates' efforts for 7 months of searching for martyrs in the deep forest during the dry season of 2023-2024. That was the day of the handover ceremony of 11 remains, including 2 martyrs who died in the capital Vientiane and 9 martyrs who died in Bolykhamxay province, to the Motherland.
In a solemn atmosphere, the martyrs were placed in ceramic coffins, embraced by the bright red national flag, and taken to Vietnam by car.
On the road from Bolykhamxay province, the capital Vientiane to Cau Treo International Border Gate (Huong Son district, Ha Tinh), soldiers and local people carrying the national flags of Vietnam and Laos waved goodbye to the martyrs for the last time.
Highway 8 is like a thread connecting the brotherhood between the two countries. The convoy left the land of Triệu Voi, through the Cầu Treo border gate, the heat blowing on their faces. Along the highway, thousands of Ha Tinh people including veterans, students, teachers, police... including soldiers who had fought in the Laos battlefield came out to welcome them.
In their hands were flowers, red flags fluttering under rows of blooming royal poincianas. At that moment, many people could not hold back their tears.
“Sitting in the car, seeing this image, we were very moved by the special sacred feelings of the people for the martyrs. Having a peaceful life today is the result of the blood sacrifices of our fathers and grandfathers.
Therefore, this is a very good moral of remembering the source of water. For us, who are directly responsible for searching for martyrs' remains, we remind ourselves to try harder," said Lieutenant Colonel Pham Huu Tien.
Nam National Martyrs Cemetery, built in 1978 on a gentle hill of 22,000 square meters in Son Chau commune, Huong Son district, is the common "home" of hundreds of martyrs returning from Laos.
The cemetery was built very uniquely in the shape of an arc, with more than 1,400 graves arranged in a circle facing the memorial. To date, 1,249 martyrs have been buried here, including more than 615 graves with unidentified information.
Over the past 25 years, the collection unit has conducted many searches in Laos. And during that journey, they found mass graves of martyrs, their blood and bones were mixed together, inseparable. When they were found and brought to Nam cemetery, they were buried together in 3 large mass graves. The largest grave had 73 martyrs, the second grave had 30 martyrs and the third grave had 8 martyrs.
Right at the entrance to the cemetery, the summer sunlight shines on two stone steles, illuminating the words: “The hot blood of the martyrs has dyed the glorious national flag even redder – The reputation of the martyrs will forever be passed down in history.”
That is the tribute to the martyrs who devoted their youth to the Fatherland and the noble international cause.
Lieutenant Colonel Pham Huu Tien, Political Commissar of the Martyrs' Remains Collection Team, shared that peace has been restored and many families and relatives of martyrs are waiting for their return. Since 1999, with the enthusiastic support of the Party Committee, government, armed forces and people of Lao ethnic groups, the Martyrs' Remains Collection Team of Ha Tinh province has searched for and recovered 821 martyrs' remains.
“However, most of them are martyrs whose names have not been determined. As military officers and soldiers on duty, we are very saddened by this situation. When they left to carry out their noble mission, they had names and ages, but when they returned to the Motherland, their information was not yet determined.
The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs is implementing a project to identify the remains of martyrs with missing information using DNA and evidence methods. We hope that this method will help them soon have their names returned and, in particular, the martyrs' families will have less pain and suffering," Colonel Tien hopes.
Photo: Duong Nguyen - Tien Huu
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/an-sinh/ngay-ve-nha-chung-trong-la-co-to-quoc-cua-liet-sy-lam-nhiem-vu-quoc-te-20240729021913879.htm
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